Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Tibet Diary：Tibet in Two Americans' Eyes

Friday, December 21, 2007

In 2006 Only , 269 bombings Killed 7000 People In India

Many hyped India as a politically stable countries. Is that true? Here is a new report from India inside. 269 bombings happened in India in 2006 only with total of 7000, including ncluding 1,711 securitymen. The number is almost twice of the casualities US and its allies experienced in Iraq, an war zone, during the last 3 years.

Don't forget: No big countries are connected with these violence even India does a lot in other countries, includeing China. They are simple uprisings of local people. They request for religious freedom, for their rights, for their independence.

There were as many as 269 bombings across India last year and the National Security Guard’s National Bomb Data Centre says J&K topped the list with 78. But this year, Assam alone has seen over 60 explosions, up from 41 last year. In Naxal-hit Chhattisgarh, bombings climbed from 51 in 2005 to 61 last year — and the targets continue to include infrastructure like power transmission lines.

It’s in this backdrop that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will chair a meeting tomorrow of chief ministers on internal security. This upsurge in violence is also taking a terrible toll — 7,000 dead, including 1,711 securitymen, in militancy-related violence in J&K, North-East and the Naxal-affected states since 2004. Add to that another 450, the number of civilians killed in terror strikes, including the Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad blasts.

Assam has reported over 400 deaths in militant violence this year. According to the South Asian Terrorism Portal, 254 civilians, 17 security personnel and 137 militants died in the state until December 11 — a quantum jump from the 174 dead last year. The Union Home Ministry’s own figures say that 501 civilians and security personnel died in militant violence in the North-Eastern states.

Though government figures show a dip in the number of civilians killed in Naxal-related violence (134 until November 21 as against 367 last year), more securitymen have died this year — 204 as against 157 last year.

The only consolation, if it can be called that, comes from J&K where this year’s death toll stood at 252 (civilian and security personnel) in 684 incidents until November 20 — a sharp drop from last year’s figure of 551 in 1,316 incidents.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

India way behind China, world in innovation

New Delhi: India had a meagre 6,406 patents as compared to 182,385 in China and the world average of 846.71 patents in force in 2004, with the total number of patent filings by Indians per million population standing at 3.40 in 2004-05 as compared to the world average of 250.72 worked out on the basis of the world population of 6377.6 million.

Informing this in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, the India’s Minister of State for Industry Dr Ashwani Kumar also told that the number of patents in India in force was 6,857 in 2005.

According to the Minister, the world average of patents in force in 2004 was worked out on the basis of the world population of 6377.6 million as per the ‘State of World Population 2004’ report by United Nations Population Fund.

The ‘Statistics on Worldwide Patent Activity, 2006 Edition’ of World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) also suggest that the number of patents in force worldwide in 2005 was about 5.6 million, up from 5.4 million in 2004.

However, Kumar said that as these numbers also include patents obtained in different countries for the same invention, it would not be feasible to draw a conclusion on the proportion of patents in force in India vis-à-vis those in force worldwide.

Taking about the steps taken to strengthen the processes to help creation of Intellectual Property Rights in the country, he said that the Government of India has invested Rs 153.00 crore for modernisation of intellectual property offices during the 9th and 10th Five Year Plans.

These include infrastructure development, computerization, human resource development and training and awareness on the processes of IPR.

While four new integrated intellectual property offices were set up in Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai, e-filing of patent applications was also made operational in July 2007.

The government has also commenced the work for setting up the National Institute of Intellectual Property Management at Nagpur.

The Minister said that seminars, conferences and workshops at national and international level have been organized for creating awareness and promotion of IPR.

To bring in global cooperation in the field of IPR, the government has signed Memoranda of Understandings with France, US, UK, European Patent Office, Japan, Switzerland and Germany.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

China builds world's largest press forge

CHENGDU, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- China has started the building of an 80,000-ton press forge in Deyang, the southwestern Sichuan Province, paving the way for making large planes, a longtime dream of the nation.

The project, with an investment of 1.517 billion yuan (204.7 million U.S. dollars), has won the approval of the National Development and Reform Commission and is expected to be the world's largest when it is finished in two and a half years, said Zeng Xiangdong, project director and vice general manager of China National Erzhong Group Co. on Friday.

A large die-hydraulic press forge is one of the key instruments in making jumbo planes. Only a few countries, including the United States, Russia and France, have such facilities, according to Zeng.

The current largest press forge is 75,000-tons and is owned by Russia. All the press forges currently in China are below 40,000 tons, which are unfit for making key parts of very large planes and hence hinder the development of the aviation industry, equipment and manufacturing.

Chen Xiaoci, vice director of the press forge project, said the machine is designed by China National Erzhong Group and built in the company's compound.

The company has produced more than 400,000 die-forgings during the past 30-odd years for China's aviation industry, used in all the models of Chinese airplanes.

China started to build very large aircraft in 1970, only two years after Airbus went into production, but the project was later shelved despite a promising start.

After a decades-long suspension, the central government last year revived the blueprint in the 11th five-year plan (2006-2010) in order to meet the country's growing demand for air travel.

To prepare for the very large plane project, China began building its own regional jet, the ARJ-21 -- meaning "advanced regional jet for the 21st century" -- in 2002.

Only the United States, Russia, France, Germany, Britain and Spain currently have the ability to build very large aircraft, with the United State's Boeing and Europe's Airbus taking the lion's share of the international market.

A new report by the U.N. Children's Fund or UNICEF, reveals that India accounted for more than two million of the 9.7 million children who died in the world before their fifth birthday last year. In other words, one-fifth of the worldwide deaths of children under the age of five occur in the populous South Asian country.

Victor Aguayo at UNICEF in New Delhi says it is now recognized that malnutrition levels in India are "unacceptably high."

The U.N. says India also has the largest pool of children who have never been immunized - about 9.5 million. These children are more vulnerable to diseases such as measles and diphtheria. (Source)

According to the World Factbook published by CIA, India's birth rate is about 2.2%. Simple calculation tells that about 10% of Indian newborns will die before they are 5 years old. That's human disaster.

Details in the report highlighting some stark realities. On the ‘human poverty’ rank devised for 108 developing countries, India ranks 62nd; even Kenya is better than us, at 60th place! This data is for 2004. In the category ‘children underweight for age 0-5’, our rank is 132nd, and India’s adult illiteracy rate is put at 39 per cent. Compare this with the adult illiteracy rate in Rwanda (35.1 per cent) and Malawi (35.9 per cent).

To those who love to talk about a “young India” against an “ageing China” and boast of how over 50 per cent of our population is below 25 years, the data from the CII/WEF study are thought-provoking.

Regular employment represents only 15 per cent of total employment in India, and employment in firms with more than 10 employees - only 4 per cent of total employment. This is the reality of Indian economy. (Source)